Appearance and Character

Robert was once a renowned warrior with a good battlefield voice.[3] In his youth he was described as very tall (Ned Stark estimates his height at six feet and six inches, with his brothers slightly shorter), broad shouldered and muscled like a maiden's fantasy. He kept himself clean shaven. This started to change after winning the crown. Robert became overweight from excessive feasting and drinking. In the nine years since Greyjoy's Rebellion, he gained at least eight stone in weight.[4] Robert grew a beard to hide his multiple chins.[4]

Robert is an avid hunter[5] who replaced the Targaryendragon skulls in the throne room with hunting tapestries.[6] Although the royal armory has numerous weapons, Tywin Lannister states the only blade used by Robert is a hunting knife he received from Lord Jon Arryn as a boy.[7] In his younger days Robert wielded a spiked iron warhammer crafted by Donal Noye and a great antlered helmet with his armor.[4][8]

Some of Robert's favorite songs are "A Cask of Ale" and "Fifty-Four Tuns".[9] He is known for his charm, outgoing and gregarious personality and remarkable ability to turn enemies into friends. Robert's lusts became the subject of ribald drinking songs throughout the realm. According to Ned, Robert would promise a woman the world in the night and forget everything, including her, in the morning.[10]

Robert fell in love with Eddard's sister Lyanna,[4] who was promised to him by her father, Lord Rickard Stark.[10] At the time Robert already had a bastard daughter, Mya Stone, which led to Lyanna commenting that Robert would never keep to one bed.[10] Some time after this event Lyanna was apparently kidnapped and taken by Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.[4] The kidnapping set in motion a chain of events that lead to Robert's Rebellion.

Robert's Rebellion

News of the kidnapping led Lyanna's eldest brother, Brandon, and later her father, Rickard, to King's Landing demanding justice. Both were executed by the Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen, who demanded that Lord Jon Arryn turn over Robert and Eddard as well. Jon rose up in rebellion instead, with Eddard (now Lord of Winterfell) and Robert rallying the North and the stormlands respectively.[5] Robert, whose descent gave him the best claim to the throne of the three lords, soon became the leader of the revolt, which became known as Robert's Rebellion. At the Battle of Gulltown, Robert slew Marq Grafton.

Robert began gathering his banners at Storm's End, but he was separated from his allies in the North. Moreover, some of his bannermen decided to remain loyal to Iron Throne and began gathering their strength at Summerhall.[14] Robert learned of this plan and defeated them all, winning three battles in a single day. While attempting to link up with the forces from the North, Robert suffered a defeat at the Battle of Ashford and was later trapped in the town of Stoney Sept where he hid in a brothel and bedded nearly every whore while hiding there. [15]

Although he won the rebellion and killed Rhaegar, Robert's hatred of his slain foe had not diminished. When Tywin presented Robert with the mutilated bodies of Elia Martell, Rhaegar's wife, and their two young children, Robert was pleased they were dead. Eddard Stark, on the other hand, was outraged and disgusted by the act, calling it murder, and saying the young prince and princess were no more than babes. Robert's response was:

Even Jon Arryn could not cool the rage and argument that followed between Robert and Eddard. Eddard left the Red Keep in a black rage to relieve Storm's End, where Stannis languished under siege. It took the death of Lyanna and their shared grief to reunite the pair in friendship.[16] Robert was thereafter haunted by her memory and the desire for further vengeance against the slain Rhaegar.[4]

With Aerys and Rhaegar dead and King's Landing fallen, the lords of the Seven Kingdoms swore fealty to Robert and accepted him as king. He pardoned many of his former enemies and won some over as allies. Those opposed to his reign, however, refer to Robert as the Usurper. Robert tasked Stannis with building a new fleet and capturing Dragonstone, the last Targaryen-loyalist stronghold. Although Stannis commanded the assault on Dragonstone, Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen were smuggled from the island beforehand, which angered the new king. Robert named Stannis Lord of Dragonstone and granted the Baratheons' ancestral seat of Storm's End to their young brother, Renly, which Stannis took as a slight.[17]

Dorne never forgot or forgave the fact that Robert condoned the cold-blooded murders of Elia Martell and her children, Rhaenys and Aegon. Lord Jon Arryn managed to negotiate a truce with Dorne and a grudging acceptance of Robert's reign. Robert appointed Jon Arryn as his Hand of the King. Jon Arryn, along with Stannis, held the Seven Kingdoms together while Robert ate, drank, hunted, and whored.

Robert began his reign by marrying Cersei Lannister, Tywin's daughter, in 284 AC. It was a political match intended to bring stability to the kingdom. The marriage was not a happy one. During their wedding night Robert, while drunk, accidentally whispered, "Lyanna", an act that earned him his new wife's hatred. Cersei bore three children: Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen. In his unhappiness Robert took to drink, feasting and sleeping with other women. In this way he had several bastard children.

Six years after taking the crown, Robert and Eddard joined forces again to crush Greyjoy's Rebellion, which cemented Robert's position on the Iron Throne.

Robert subsequently beggared the realm with the expense of his tournaments and feasts, despite the fact Aerys II had left treasure vaults overflowing with gold. Robert's spending eventually left the crown in debt of over six million golden dragons (borrowing heavily from the Lannisters, the Tyrells, the Faith and the Iron Bank of Braavos).

Due to his frequent whoring, Robert also sired many bastards. According to Donal Noye, he changed by becoming a king, and not for the better.[18] Robert Baratheon also learned to close his eyes to anything he did not wish to see, a fact best proven when he was presented with the bodies of Rhaegar's children.

Recent Events

A Game of Thrones

When the Hand of the King, Lord Jon Arryn, dies suddenly, Robert journeys to Winterfell to meet the last person he truly trusts, Lord Eddard Stark, after a long separation. Robert appears to Eddard a broken man, unhealthy and unhappy.[4] Eddard reluctantly takes the position of Hand and comes to King's Landing. He, like Jon, does much of the work as Robert seldom bothers to attend small council meetings. Robert confesses to Ned that he dreams about giving up his crown and journeying to the Free Cities as a sellsword to spend his life warring and whoring, believing that is what he was made for; only the thought of his heir, Joffrey, on the Iron Throne with his mother, Cersei, whispering in his ear keeps Robert from indulging his fantasy.[16]

When Robert calls a meeting to demand the death of the pregnant Daenerys Targaryen, who is in exile, Eddard refuses to be a part of it and resigns his position in protest.[19] After Eddard is injured in an ambush led by Ser Jaime Lannister, Cersei's twin brother, Robert visits his friend and gives him back his badge of office, stating that if Ned refuses to take it, Robert will pin it on Jaime. While Robert is off on one of his hunts, Eddard discovers that Robert's children are Cersei's bastards born of incest with her brother, Jaime.[20]

Acting first, Cersei has Robert's squire, her cousin Lancel Lannister, give Robert a very strong wine, three times as potent as normal, which causes him to become very drunk. When the hunting party finally tracks down a large boar in the kingswood, Robert is so inebriated that he misses his mark and is charged down and mortally gored. According to Varys, if it had not been the boar, it would have been a fall from a horse or an arrow gone astray, as Cersei needed Robert dead before he returned from his hunt.

When Robert returns badly wounded and near death, he has Eddard visit him and make a will, naming him Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm until Joffrey comes of age. Eddard, seeing how much pain Robert is in, does not reveal the secret of Joffrey's parentage, not wanting to add further pain to his dying friend. Instead, when writing the will, Eddard replaces "My son Joffrey" with "my heir";[21] because the king's children are actually Jaime's bastards, Eddard believes Robert's heir should be his middle brother, Stannis. Robert dies a day later. His death tips off a struggle for power that leads to the War of the Five Kings.

Known bastards

Although Robert Baratheon is known to have fathered - according to Maggy the Frog's prophecy - a total of sixteen bastards, only one has been acknowledged. Varys admits to knowing of eight. Five have been seen by point of view characters, while two others have been mentioned only in passing. Because of how Eddard words Robert's will, Cersei begins a campaign to kill all of Robert's bastards, but Tyrion stops it after an ugly scene with Barra's mother fighting to protect the baby. They are listed in approximate age order.

Mya Stone. A bastard daughter born to Robert in the Vale whilst he was Jon Arryn's ward. She serves as a guide to and from the Eyrie, and becomes a favorite companion to Sansa Stark. Eddard Stark remembers that Robert was very fond of her, although like all his bastard children he later abandoned her.

Bella. An unacknowledged bastard daughter who lived at the brothel called the Peach in Stoney Sept. Her mother told her that she was conceived during the Battle of the Bells when a wounded Robert hid there.

Gendry. An unacknowledged bastard who was born to a worker in an alehouse. When he was old enough, an unknown lord paid Gendry's apprentice fee so he could learn to be a blacksmith. Gendry developed a reputation for stubbornness and fashioned a bull's head helmet, causing him to be named the "Bull". Following the death of Robert, Varys arranges for the boy to flee King's Landing with Yoren of the Night's Watch. Gendry knows that Queen Cersei wants him dead, although he does not know why. He travels with Arya Stark until the brotherhood without banners captures them and he joins the organization. The brotherhood later places him at the crossroads inn to smith and look after a group of orphans there. When Brienne of Tarth meets him, she is astonished by how much he looks like Renly, actually addressing him as "Renly" and "my lord".

Edric Storm. Robert's only acknowledged bastard son, born to Delena Florent.[10] He lives at Storm's End under the protection of Cortnay Penrose, the castellan. Robert visited Edric almost every year, taught him how to fight, and gave him a warhammer.[22] Stannis lays siege to the castle with the goal of capturing Edric Storm and using him to prove his claims of Cersei's incestuous affair with her brother Jaime. The red witch Melisandre also aims to use Edric's blood to raise the dragons of Dragonstone. Davos Seaworth smuggles Edric away from Dragonstone before he can be sacrificed.

Quotes by Robert

“

That damnable wheelhouse, the way it creaks and groans, climbing every bump in the road as if it were a mountain ... I promise you, if that wretched thing breaks another axle, I’m going to burn it, and Cersei can walk! [16]

The gods be damned. It was a hollow victory they gave me. A crown ... it was the girl I prayed them for. Your sister, safe ... and mine again, as she was meant to be. I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown? The gods mock the prayers of kings and cowherds alike.[16]

Quotes about Robert

“

The king was a great disappointment to Jon. His father had talked of him often: the peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident, the fiercest warrior of the realm, a giant among princes. Jon saw only a fat man, red-faced under his beard, sweating through his silks. He walked like a man half in his cups.[23]

Tell me, what right did my brother Robert ever have to the Iron Throne? Oh, there was talk of the blood ties between Baratheon and Targaryen, of weddings a hundred years past, of second sons and elder daughters. No one but the maesters care about any of it. Robert won the throne with his warhammer.[24]

We all know what my brother would do. Robert would gallop up to the gates of Winterfell alone, break them with his warhammer, and ride through the rubble to slay Roose Bolton with his left hand and the Bastard with his right. I am not Robert. But we will march, and we will free Winterfell … or die in the attempt.[31]